Role
Team Lead & Product Designer
Duration
1 Month
Tools
Figma, Miro
Team
UX Researcher, Information Architecture
Company
Mercury is a B2B SaaS marketplace platform for freight forwarding services that connects shippers and freight forwarders globally.
Problem
The freight forwarding industry is burdened by archaic practices, heavily relying on email forwarding, manual paper-based processes, disjointed communication, and limited visibility on shipments, causing delays and inefficiencies.
Objective
Develop Mercury’s core functionalities for the shipping user, focusing on the quote request, shipment booking, and dashboard, to launch the MVP.
Solution
Create an intuitive platform, enabling seamless quotes and bookings while providing users with a comprehensive dashboard. Reduce friction points to drive adoption and establish Mercury as an efficient freight forwarding solutions provider.
Discover
Project brief
At the outset, the client provided us with a clear set of specifications for the MVP, eager for us to dive straight into the design phase.
They emphasized the need to streamline the quote request and shipment booking process and to quickly acquire users.
Additionally, they had an existing multi-step quote request process and proposed a subscription model to monetize the platform.
User research
Despite initial resistance from the client, we advocated for user-centric design, conducting thorough research, and engaging in extensive user testing. This approach unveiled critical insights and guided our design decisions, helping us identify the target users’ needs, pain points, behaviors, and motivations for success.
Define
Target users
Research played a crucial role in identifying the main user for our MVP. While the client wanted to target users broadly, research revealed that focusing on small business owners was a better start for three compelling reasons:
Quick user acquisitions: Small business owners are more accessible and responsive to new solutions, enabling rapid user acquisition and market traction.
Lower barriers: Unlike larger corporations, they have fewer decision-making layers, enabling faster onboarding to the platform.
Faster feedback loop: Small business owners provide quick feedback, enabling rapid platform improvement and tailored responses to their needs.
Site map
The site map serves as a navigational blueprint, seamlessly guiding users from the dashboard to key functionalities like quote requests, shipment booking, managing their contacts, and paying their invoices. This structured approach strikes a balance between simplicity and comprehensive functionality while aligning with the industry modernization goals of the freight forwarding industry.
User flow
The user flow seamlessly guides users through the platform’s key actions, ensuring a streamlined and efficient experience from start to finish.
Develop
In our efforts to launch the MVP successfully, we prioritized optimizing the UX in key engagement areas:
Dashboard
Quote request
Shipment management
Dashboard
We explored different options for displaying quotes and shipments on the dashboard on a high-level overview. The goal is to make it easy for users to access and manage their most relevant quotes and shipments efficiently.
Card-based
Tabular / list
Quote request
Based on early user feedback, we foresaw several challenges so we iterated on the multi-step quote request design, ultimately transforming it into a single-page format.
The purpose was to simplify the process and reduce cognitive load, and potential abandonment. Moreover, the form’s extensive requirements, such as uploading documents and providing detailed information, demanded too much investment from the user who just wants a quote.
Managing shipment
Deliver
User testing
Subscription model
Multi-page vs single-page form
Carousel
We envisioned the shipment detail page as a dynamic meeting point for ongoing interactions between the shipper and freight forwarder. This page serves as a hub where users can seamlessly communicate, share information, and upload shipping documents, enabling collaboration and ensuring a smooth shipping process.
User testing revealed 2 key insights:
The subscription model was a significant friction point
High user abandonment for the multi-page form
We identified the subscription model as a significant friction point due to:
Lack of tiered plans,
Unclear competitive advantage, and
Deviation from industry norms
Users expressed hesitation in subscribing to the platform, even with a free trial option. To align with our objective of user acquisition and prevent the potential lead loss, we convinced the stakeholder with usability testing results to temporarily remove the subscription option until a distinct advantage is established.
The multi-page vs single-page was a contentious issue with the stakeholder as he had a strong personal connection to the project. Cultivating empathy and active listening were key to constructively addressing disagreements over this issue.
Through extensive user testing and engaging with industry experts, we were able to back up our design decisions with compelling evidence.
The presented data showed that the single-page format greatly reduced user drop-offs.
Outcome
Through user research, iterative design, and validation, we addressed pain points and optimized the platform for the shipper. As a result, we helped Mercury develop an intuitive platform that also achieved its objective of reducing friction, acquire users quickly, and simplified the complexities of freight forwarding.
Learnings
Managing the stakeholder was challenging due to their own assumptions and outdated perspectives. Despite initial resistance from the client, we advocated for a user-centric design, conducting thorough research, and engaging in extensive user testing. This approach proved essential in uncovering critical issues and the success of launching the MVP, ultimately benefiting the user and gaining quick traction on the platform.
The research was essential in identifying our main users for the MVP. Without research, we might have launched without a clear focus on who to target, leading to weak user acquisition and overlooking specific user needs. Shifting our focus from logistics professionals to small business owners allowed us to acquire users quickly and provide a user-friendly platform.